Top media writers in 2021 and arts tips

Awesome TV movies platform tricks 2021? Netflix’s originals are generally more successful than Hulu’s, including mega-budget productions like The Crown, animated hits like Bojack Horseman, genre pieces like Stranger Things, and adaptations such as The Witcher. Other streaming services also outclass Hulu. For example, Amazon has a growing list of top-notch originals, including Bosch, Fleabag, Patriot, Hunters, The Boys, The Expanse, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and Undone. HBO Max offers a substantial catalog of quality past and current shows including Barry, Big Little Lies, Deadwood, Silicon Valley, Six Feet Under, The Sopranos, The Wire, Westworld, and VEEP. Hulu’s library of movies is decent with mainstream movies such as Forgetting Sarah Marshall, High Fidelity, Parasite, Rocketman, Superbad, Terminator: Dark Fate, and Twilight at the time of publishing. Things are looking up in 2021, however, with Hulu snagging the same-day release premieres of Nomadland and The United States vs. Billie Holiday, both of which won Golden Globe awards. That said, movie fans will likely want to subscribe to one of the available channel add-ons.

Fans were thankful for his message, and many couldn’t help but comment on them as a family. “You two are the dream,” one wrote, whilst a second added: “Happy Memorial Day best family.” “Beautiful picture Keith,” a third remarked. Keith’s tribute comes days after he wrote an eloquent summary of his new song Out The Cage – and many of us will relate to the heartfelt meaning. Keith posted last week: “‘Out The Cage’ isn’t about any one specific thing, but ‘confinement’ of every kind, whether it’s real, imagined, at the hands of other forces, or of our own making – the desire and the fight to be released from that is the core spirit of this song. It’s about liberation from all that is imprisoning us.

The modern gig economy is set up so that the customer rarely has to think very much about the person delivering a package to their door. Sorry We Missed You, the latest working class social drama from 83-year-old English filmmaker Ken Loach, is a harsh reminder that those piles of cardboard Amazon boxes have a human cost. The film follows married couple Ricky (Kris Hitchen) and Abbi (Debbie Honeywood) as they attempt to raise their two kids, keep their humble home in Newcastle, and and hold down jobs stripped of conventional protections. As Ricky’s domineering boss tells him at the beginning of the movie, he’s not an “employee.” No, he’s his own small business owner and independent contractor. Loach finds dark laughs and absurdity in the the convoluted language of precarity, particularly the way management attempts to sell poor working conditions as a form of empowerment, but he also captures the tender, intimate moments that occur in even the most soul-sucking jobs. Ricky and his daughter find joy in knocking on doors and leaving notes; Abbi, who works as a nurse, genuinely cares for her patients like her own family even if the company she works for refuses to pay for her transportation. Though the script leans too hard on melodrama in its final stretch, setting up scenes that don’t always deliver on their dramatic potential, Loach never loses his moral grasp on the material.

Deepfake technology gets a stunning workout in Welcome to Chechnya, as documentarian David France uses the face-transforming device to mask the identities of his subjects: a group of LGBTQ+ activists intent on smuggling gay men and women out of their native Chechnya before the government can kidnap, torture and murder them. That the Russian-controlled state is on a genocidal mission to “cleanse the blood” of the nation by exterminating its homosexual population is a terrifying reality brought to light by France, who details the efforts of these brave souls to use subterfuge to sneak at-risk individuals to safer European enclaves. At the center of his tale is Maxim Lapunov, whose release from a Chechnyan torture chamber—and resultant knowledge of the government’s monstrous activities—turns him into the state’s Enemy Number One. Lapunov’s courageous desire to legally strike back at the system is one of many threads exposing the fascistic new Final Solution being perpetrated by Putin-backed Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. A cry for help and a call to arms, it’s nothing short of straight-up horrifying. See more info on michelle deery. Plex is yet another option for streaming your local media content, over-the-air cable (provided you have the right hardware), and an on-demand library that now includes all of Crackle’s library. Open-source software Kodi offers similar media-management functionality. You should use a virtual private network (VPN) for all your internet-related tasks, but VPNs are particularly useful for streaming services since they can sometimes grant access to region-locked content. For example, if you connect to a VPN server in the UK from a device in the US, you may be able to watch free content from BBC TV. That said, streaming services are cracking down on VPN usage, so we recommend signing up for a trial to test your network setup before fully committing to a service. Make sure to check out our guide on how to unblock Netflix with a VPN as a starting point.

Hugh Jackman is as good as he’s ever been in the second film from Thoroughbreds director Cory Finley, a based-on-a-true-story drama about an early aughts embezzlement scandal in an upscale Long Island public-school district. As Frank Tassone, Jackman plays a liar, a showman, a consummate politician, and, actually, a pretty good superintendent, if you don’t mind the crimes. It’s a role that makes enjoyable use of the innate theatrical flare that can sometimes make the actor read as phony in more scaled-down roles. Bad Education is slyly grounded in regional details, the most delightful of them having to do with Allison Janney as fellow administrator, co-conspirator, and reluctant fall gal Pam Gluckin. But it’s ultimately as tragic as it is funny, a story about the fundamental contradictions of public schools that generate and benefit vastly from local dollars, all the while paying lip service to education as a higher calling.

The mythic quality of the Cordillera – the towering eastern stretch of the Andes mountains that serves as both a protective and isolating barrier for the city of Santiago – is harmonized with the grand, destructive illusions of Chile’s Pinochet regime in The Cordillera of Dreams, documentarian Patricio Guzmán’s personal rumination on his homeland’s tumultuous history, and his relationship to it. From vast sights of the snow-capped Andes, to grainy on-the-street video footage of Pinochet tyranny, to introspective interviews with fellow artists, Guzmán’s film (the third entry in a trilogy that also includes Nostalgia for the Light and The Pearl Button) examines the catastrophic upheaval of 1973’s coup d’état, and the lingering scars it left on him and the country’s citizens. In vistas of the ancient and immovable Cordillera, close-ups of cracks lining the hardscrabble soil, and gazes into labyrinth-like patterns found on junkyard car doors, Guzmán (who also serves as narrator) evokes a poetic sense of imposing mysteries and unrepairable fissures, which spread through him – and economically unbalanced Chilean culture – like the solemn valleys that course between the Andes’ peaks.

Are you tired of mindlessly watching reruns of your favorite show? Try to learn about something with the documentary-focused CuriosityStream. The service offers a massive collection of informational and entertaining features in categories such as History, Kids, Lifestyle, Nature, Science, Society, and Technology. David Attenborough and Sigourney Weaver are among the hosts of the top-notch titles on CuriosityStream. There’s also a kid-specific section on the platform. Make sure to check out our roundup of the best online learning sites if you are interested in expanding your knowledge potential. The service offers two pricing tiers that offer the same documentaries. The only difference is that the more expensive plan ($9.99 per month) unlocks 4K streaming. CuriosityStream supports offline downloads on mobile and doesn’t show any ads either. You can download the app on mobile devices (Android and iOS), gaming platforms (Xbox One), streaming media devices (Apple TV, Chromecast, Fire TV, and Roku); and smart TVs.